


Smashed Red Porche

by Featherly



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Car Accidents, Hospitals, car crash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 20:51:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16542005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Featherly/pseuds/Featherly
Summary: He had the highschool in his sights, but when he looked away, it all happened so fast.





	Smashed Red Porche

Dick drove along at a leisurly pace with his phone to his ear. Sure it was frowned upon, but he never really spoke to Tim for more than half an hour in a day. With the phone pressed to his ear, he watched the intersection he was at the front of, eyes half lidded and tired. 

The rain poured down heavily outside his red porche, a high wind doing nothing to remove the thick fog that was so uncharacteristic for the early afternoon. Sirens echoed far away in every direction, the closest one a dozen blocks away.

“It’s really no problem” said Dick into the phone, “I couldn’t possibly let you walk home in this weather, and asking Alfred on his birthday is 100% not okay! Just give me 10 more minutes in this damn weather and I’ll be there.” 

“Alright Dick, fine” said Tim, “But you better have your seatbelt on when you get here!”

“No promises little man” replied Dick smugly. It had become a joke between the two since Dick never wore one as Robin and had developed a bad habit of ust not wearing his seatbelt, a habit that Tim was beginning to immitate since becoming Robin himself.

He drove at the speed limit on the slippery roads, confident that the expensive car’s tires were reliable in the terrible weather. He passed through a roundabout, and pulled up to the last set of traffic lights before Tim’s highschool.  
“Your school’s in my sights now Timmy, I’m getting off the phone now.”  
Tim replied just as the light went green, so Dick accellerated to the speed limit in mere seconds and took a moment to look down at his phone to end the call once Tim had said what he needed to. Dick didn’t hit the button.

It all happened in a flash. Dick moved into the intersection at the same time as a truck being driven by a burley man in a mask, and even Dick’s porche with the highest possible safety rating couldn’t stop him from ejecting from his seat and through the windshield. He felt the first crunch of the glass against his cheek and for a moment he was worried that the glass wasn’t going to break, that his body was going to go through him like a bug when it hits from the other side. 

Relief swept through his body when he felt the freezing air hit his face and arm, which he had raised without even realising he had done it. Dick crumpled against the small truck at 50mph and cried out. He rolled off the front of his car which had become entangled with the truck and landed on his back, smashing his head against the glass and metal studded pavement. His phone sat on the floor of his car, a concerned Tim calling out to nobody.

Dick opened his eyes to slits, staring up at the sky with rain cascading down on his face. He tried to move one arm, but the dull ache stopped him. He tried to move one leg, screaming at the pain and crying at the realisation that The lower part of his leg was facing the wrong way. 

Dick grit his sore teeth and groaned through the pain. He lifted his head slightly, feeling his hair pull on the blood which was already drying on the shards of glass underneath his head. He dropped his head again, hoping against all odds that blood wasn’t flowing from his ears.  
He tried to move his other arm, and while he managed to do so, shaking off glass as he did so, he felt pins and needles, noticing that the raised appendage shook dangerously. He dropped his arm and moaned, closing his eyes against the freezing rain. When he opened his eyes again, parts of the sky was blocked by silhouettes, by people who stopped to see what had happened. Their lips moved but no sound came out above the high pitched whine buried in his ear.

As the sound dissolved, Dick could vaguely make out what some people were saying; “Did anyone see what happened here?” “Find a wallet on the other one, the boy over there.” “Oh my god, he’s dead!”  
Dead? What did they mean dead? Dick didn’t feel dead...  
Dick felt someone reaching into his pocket and tried to flinch away, though his body automatically spasmed painfully at the touch anyway. He blinked and groaned, shifting his head from side to side to get it into a more comfortable position.  
“Richard Grayson” said someone to Dick’s left.  
He attempted to look over at the person who had spoken, but 6 new hands held his head in place to stop it from moving, the hands owners telling him “No, no! Don’t move. Theres an ambulance on its way now.”

Dick groaned again, the pain in his leg infinitely worse, and the realisation that his right forearm was crushed too. ‘It must have taken most of the impact’ thought Dick. 

He heard sirens from two ambulances approach, the deafening roar splitting Dick’s head painfully into a headache. He closed his shining eyes as hard as he could against the pain, the red and blue lights invading them anyway. He heard people exit the vehicle closest to him and drop something to the ground. He cried out as they lifted his head to secure a neck brace, and again as three people straightened his broken leg and thrust a temporary cast around it. He screamed as they maneuvered his crushed arm, and again when they lifted him onto the stretcher beside him.

Dick groaned and started to cry. He couldn’t help it. Dry sobs escaped him, each movement hurting him.  
He felt a sharp stab in his forearm at the elbow, another in his shoulder, and another in his leg. The needles were quickly forgotten against the harder, more intense pains he felt, but whatever they had stabbed him with was beginning to work already. The pain slowly faded, or maybe be was already passing out.  
The medics pushes him towards the flashing lights, and somewhere Dick heard Tim cry out “Wait! Please wait! That’s my brother!”  
The last word was lost on Dick however, as he fell into a blissful, dreamless sleep.

~~~

Dick groaned in his sleep. It was a habit he had had for as long as he could remember. Kids on school camps teased him about it, as had Jason, Tim and even Bruce at some points, but watching Dick in the hospital bed made Tim wish he would groan as loud as he could. The silence was killing him.

Finally, an unreadable amount of time later, Dick groaned. Tim’s heart skipped a beat and went faster, relief sweeping through him. Relief, until the groans turned into screams.

Dick didn’t open his eyes straight away. He woke up in a bed in a place that smelled like a hospital, and with what he felt he decided that it was a good place for him to be. He groaned at the ache, but held onto the noise as the pain gradually changed and became intense. His body shivered even though he felt hot, and he screamed when his nerves caught up with his broken limbs.

Tim stared in horror, frozen to the spot even when three nurses came in and held his brother down and jabbed him with needles over and over. The older boy calmed down, his breathing loud and close to a whimper. He gradually went back to sleep. Back to silence. 

Tim’s expression didn’t change until Bruce entered the room with Alfred in tow. He stared at them wide eyed, and ran to the offered hug from Bruce. Tears ran down his cheek and he buried his face in Bruce’s jacket.  
“He just screams” said Tim when he finally emerged from the jacket. He stepped back from Bruce and wiped his tears on his sleeve, an impossble attempt to wipe his weak moment away from his glowing red face.  
“He will be okay. I promise.” Tim continued to sniffle, so Bruce leant in and put a hand by his mouth in a secretive gesture and said “I've got the painkillers that actually work in my pocket so next time he wakes up he should be able to do more than scream.”  
Tim smiled at Bruce and gave a polite, genuine laugh. 

“Do you know what happened?” asked Alfred behind Bruce’s shoulder. 

“Not really” admitted Tim. “I was on the phone to Dick. He was driving to pick me up and then I was telling him a joke before he hung up, but he didn’t hang up. I heard a loud bang and breaking glass. It was so loud I had to move my phone away from my ear. The thing is, I didn’t just hear it through my phone, so I ran doen the street towards the noise, and i saw a bunch of flashing lights and ran towards it. Some money truck on the wrong side of the road collided with Dick’s car, and the only person I saw was on the ground in a pool of blood. They were stuffing him in a body bag, and he kinda looked like Dick.” Tears had welled up in Tim’s eyes again.  
"He stole the truck?" Asked Bruce.

“No. He was in uniform. Roads were slippery. I thought Dick was dead so I kinda just watched because I didn’t know what to do. It felt like my heart was literally broken! But then I saw them pull a gurney to its full height and realised that the guy on the ground had to have been thrown from the truck, so it wasn’t actually Dick. I ran to them and luckily they heard me, so I came here with him.”

Alfred and Bruce nodded. Bruce placed a hand on Tim’s shoulder and guided him towards the couch near the window. Alfred sat by Tim, and Bruce stood next to the chair by Dick’s bed, sneaking the drugs he’d brought into Dick.  
Hours later, Bruce had to sit down. Hours after that, Dick finally woke up. 

He groaned loudly, ending the breath with cries of anguish. He opened his dry eyes and stared at Bruce, half lidded. “Fucking hurts” he said clearly.

“Of course it does. There was glass in your skull. You’re lucky to be alive boy!” Bruce showed his anger, but Dick knew he was glad. He was lucky to be alive. 

“Didn’t even see the truck... Hows the other guy?” 

“Fine. Looks a bit like you, but fine” said Bruce convincingly.  
Tim was about to intervene and correct Bruce, but Alfred stopped him.  
“Good. I’m glad I didn’t kill him because of my phone call.” 

Tim knew Dick would find out the truth. He believed what Bruce had said, but some news report would screw the lie up. Professional councelling would be in order, again.

“Sorry bout ruining your birthday Alfie” said Dick.

“You’re alive. Thats plenty” said Alfred.

~~~

When Dick was out of hospital weeks later, he went to the batcave where Bruce had kept the smashed red porche.  
Dick noted that there were still parts of the truck's grill enterwined in his hood, the ornament completely gone along with parts of the car around it.  
He looked inside the car, spotting his phone of the floor of the front seat. He opened the door with difficulty, almost collapsing in his attempts to get to the device. He sliced his finger on some glass, swore, and dropped the phone. He would need a new one.

He wandered around the car, fascinated by the dents. He noted the large one where he had plopped against it on his way to the ground and winced at the recalled whiplash he had felt after crunching into the truck. He sighed and moved to the other side of the car, opened the passenger door, and took his things from the glove compartment. He opened the trunk of the car and removed his things from there too, thankful that noone had found his nightwing suit. 

He closed the trunk and saw something that froze his spine.  
A torn piece of jean fabric was trapped in a curve of the wreck below his smashed back window.  
He investigated further and found that there was red on the bumper, a deep red that matched the car exactly. He looked carefully at the decor and found that the blood was plentiful, too much for the man to actually still be alive. 'The crushed roof must have trapped his pant leg until someone cut him down from it, Dick assumed,  
"But it was too late, and he bled out all over it." 

Dick always wore his seatbelt and never touched his phone while driving after that. He wished the innocent man in the truck had killed him instead.


End file.
